Published on October 21, 2018
By: Trude Henderson According to a November, 2016 report by Salesforce, “The customer experience is now the Top Sales Benchmark.” With this said, we at ToothFairy believe that the power is in the people - your dental patients and your employees, all stakeholders - and it is they who determine if your dental practice excels or falls behind. We recently lighted upon an excellent blog (“7 Foundations of a Great CX Program,” CCW Fall Executive Report, February 21, 2017), by Ben Motteram that we think illuminates the truth of this assertion, and we would like to share it with you, the dental practice leader. The blog’s author, a proud native of Adelaide, Australia, says that he derived his “foundations” from the 9 principles for building the city from scratch enunciated by Edward Gibbon Wakefield in the 1820’s. Below you will find Motteram’s 7 foundational principles for building a superb CX program, accompanied by some responses of our own:
Our 3-year pilot study revealed, for example, that saying ‘Thank you!’ often helps foster resilience. Employees who feel appreciated are more likely to endure the inevitable bumps in the road and continue moving forward, favorably impacting the patients in your practice. In addition, we recommend that you discuss and resolve issues on-the-spot, rather than waiting for the occasional conference room meeting, but make sure that all conversations regarding these matters are held out of earshot of your patients. A daily huddle, if executed properly, can be one of the most effective leadership tools at your disposal for making small real-time, incremental changes. In fact, a well-executed huddle of five minutes can be more effective and inspiring than a twenty-minute, poorly-executed one. 7) Then, “measure and communicate success.” The author suggests that you use metrics to enable customers, employees and everyone else involved, to understand and appreciate the extent of your gradual progress in making the aspirational experience a reality. We would add that based on our experience, dental practices that encourage transparency usually have higher-performing teams than those that do not. As Peter Drucker said, “What gets measured gets improved.” Transparency and trust go hand-in-hand. People who are open and honest generally inspire greater esteem and confidence than others. The same applies to leaders, customers and organizations. Our advice: utilize visual metrics in daily huddles to reward ‘right’ behaviors and help your team understand where they are now. Then, ask them ‘what or how’ questions like this: “What are the gaps that need to be filled in order to get where we want to be?” or “How do you propose that we accomplish this task?” In short, we suggest that you, the dental practice leader, remain mindful of these 7 pointers while honing your CX program. Trude Henderson is the co-founder of ToothFairy, a startup elective dental and medical practice improvement software company which delivers an unparalleled customer experience that inspires delight, loyalty and positive emotional connections to improve the lives of patients and the practices they visit. In 2016, she was the first to introduce High-Reliability Organizational Concepts to the dental industry. For questions, contact her directly at Trude@GetToothFairy.com. Follow Trude on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/trudehenderson/ (no email required). Go to ToothFairy's website: www.ToothFairySoftware.com. |
NewsFind the latest ToothFairy news, press releases and updates here! Archives
August 2022
Categories
All
|